


The One Where Mikey Figures Out Everything

by Gracefully



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2015-08-04
Packaged: 2018-04-12 22:09:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4496598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gracefully/pseuds/Gracefully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mikey, as Gerard's brother and also as one of his very best friends, notices a lot of things about Gerard. Mikey has always been a people-watcher, an observer of the highest degree. He's not blind, he can see when something is forming between two people, be it romantic or otherwise.<br/>This being said, it took Mikey a while to figure out what was up between Frank and Gerard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One Where Mikey Figures Out Everything

**Author's Note:**

> Un beta'd and written in under 2 hours. I apologize in advance.

  
  
Mikey, as Gerard's brother and also as one of his very best friends, notices a lot of things about Gerard. He notices when his brother is sad, or mad, or having a bad day or on the verge of a breakthrough. Mikey has always been a people-watcher, an observer of the highest degree. He's not blind, he can see when something is forming between two people, be it romantic or otherwise. 

This being said, it took Mikey a while to figure out what was up between Frank and Gerard. He knew his brother like the back of his hand, yet he had never seen anything quite like this.

  
Mikey first notices the looks. The slow, long, memorizing gazes that slide over and stick like molasses, gazes full of emotion and thought. Those happen while one is on the phone, or lighting a cigarette, and slide away as soon as the other looks up. Gerard is far more guilty of these than Frank. Frank, however, is guilty of lots of short glances, fast ones, like he's making sure Gerard is still there. His eyes dart over Gerard's face, quickly, before he's sucking his head and pretending he wasn't looking.

Gerard will look at Frank, and then Frank will look up and Gerard will look away. And then Frank looks away and Gerard's gaze slides back and the whole exchange repeats ad infinum. When Mikey thinks about it, it's a miracle the two ever make eye contact at all.

The two are always very careful to keep emotion out of their face, but Mikey notices a lot of things that other people don't, and the tiny hints of smiles or softening around the eyes don't get past Mikey. At first, he rolls his eyes and looks away, but after a while, after things begin to click into place, Mikey finds the looks intriguing. It's the tiny moments, the ones when they believe that no one is watching them, that are the most telling of a person. Mikey happens to catch a lot of these moments.

If the looks weren't telling enough, the cuddling sure was. Gerard and Frank are both very huggy, cuddly people, and they tended to gravitate towards one another, partially because they knew that about the other person. Mikey had witnessed one of Frank's best moves several times. They would all be watching a movie, the three of them and Ray and Bob, and Frank would inevitably be sitting next to Gerard and suddenly say/demand,

"I'm in a cuddly mood; cuddle with me, dude." And then Gerard would pull a satisfied Frank to his side, and the two would be draped over one another for the rest of the night.   
It wasn't just during movie nights, too. It wasn't uncommon for Frank to come up behind Gerard and hug him from behind, and Gerard wouldn't even blink. Instead, he'd often turn around and hug Frank back. The pair would often sit next to each other, legs brushing, even if there was more room on the couch or bench or wherever they were sitting. They seemed to gravitate towards one another, no matter the setting.

Mikey's bunk was on the bottom, below Gerard's. He was woken one night to feet pressing into his space, of someone standing on his bunk to see into Gerard's.

"Gerard?" Frank whispered after a moment.

Gerard was awake instantly. "Yeah?" There was a pause when no one said anything. Then Gerard asked, softly, "Hey, are you okay?"

When Frank answered, his voice was strained. "I just-uh. I had a bad nightmare and I-well. Nevermind, it was stupid." Before he began to slip away. The feet left the vicinity of Mikey's bunk.

"No, Frank, wait." Gerard said. "You can sleep here with me, if you want." He offered after a moment. The feet reappeared near Mikey's face.

"Really?" Frank sounded hopeful and relieved. "I mean, you're okay with that?"

"Of course." Gerard answered. Then, the feet left Mikey's bunk once and for all. The bunk above Mikey squeaked as the two rearranged themselves to accommodate the other. Mikey rolled his eyes at the bunk above him, before promptly falling asleep.

In the morning, Mikey got immense pleasure at yanking open the curtains to Gerard's bunk to let the sunlight in, all at once. Gerard was facing the curtain, and when his eyes cracked open, he groaned and attempted to block out the light. Frank was curled in towards Gerard, and he just buried his face into Gerard's chest, which Mikey found oddly endearing.

"Up and at 'em, guys." Mikey said weakly, not feeling very awake himself.

"Fuck off." Came the muffled reply from Frank. Gerard grinned sleepily at that, ruffling Frank's hair messily with his free hand.

"Un-fucking-believable." Mikey muttered as he left the two in Gerard's bunk, in favor of waking Ray and Bob.

Since that night, Mikey had been woken up on several accounts to the same thing happening. Gerard seemed to be okay with it, hell, he seemed happy about it, and Mikey used his better judgement, and didn't tease either about the occurrence.

  
  
Everyone knew that Gerard liked to talk on length about any number of things, but not many people knew that one of his favorite subjects of conversation was Frank. Sure, he could talk about other things for longer, but a certain light entered his eyes when he talked about Frank. He became more animated, more excited, more alive in general.   
Mikey noticed the same change come over Frank when he talked about Gerard. The knee would start bouncing and his eyes would sparkle and a smile would come onto his face, and Mikey found himself spending more and more time in interviews watching Gerard and Frank instead of listening to the questions asked.

It didn't matter in what way they were talking about each other, either. Gerard had the exact same expression when he was talking about how bad Frank smelled in the van days as when he was talking about how amazing Frank's energy was onstage.

Speaking of onstage energy, the duo had plenty of chemistry when it came to the other. Everyone knew that Frank basically went crazy on stage, high off of the crowd and the sweat and the music, and everyone knew that Gerard was on top of a symphony of experience, guiding the audience through an amazing show. Somewhere in the middle, the two met. The number of times Frank had jumped on or messed with Gerard was out of hand, and Mikey noticed that Gerard didn't try to get action out of anyone else. Ray wouldn't rise to the bait anyway, and Mikey would just duck his head and play harder if Gerard tried to get him to do anything. So, Frank was not only the best option of onstage Tom-foolery, he was basically the only option.   
  
Then, of course, there was the art. Somewhere in between concerts, Gerard had failed to tell Mikey that Frank had practically become his fucking muse. One time, Gerard was sitting on the couch, drawing, when Mikey tried to see what had captured Gerard's artistic eye. Gerard, who was usually more than willing to show his little brother his awesome art, was suddenly reserved and blushing, clutching his sketchbook to his chest and refusing to show Mikey. Mikey knew something was up, so he interrogated Gerard in the only way he knew worked like a charm: with tickles.

Gerard gave up after only a couple of seconds, such were the power of Mikey’s fingers. While Gerard’s hands left his sketchbook, Mikey swept in and plucked it from his brother’s grasp, holding it above his head and twisting away when Gerard reached up to grab it.

Mikey regarded the drawing. It was a sketch of Frank, his face in a happy grin, lip ring gleaming and eyes alight with mischief. “It’s really good, dude,” Mikey said, tossing the sketchbook back to Gerard and sliding down next to him on the couch. Gerard blushed and didn’t answer, flipping to a different page to work on while Mikey scrolled through the channels on the TV. He knew not to tease Gerard about the drawing. After all, it was really good.

He caught Gerard at it again, during game night, when Frank was locked in what had to be the fifth round of 1x1 Mario Kart with Ray. Gerard sat in his corner, happily sketching the scorpion tattoo on Frank’s neck, when Mikey noticed what he was doing. He rolled his eyes a little, and listened to Frank’s triumphant calls when he blue-shelled Ray and took the lead.

 

Not even two weeks later, but several cities over, Mikey walked in on Frank and Gerard, sitting opposite each other at the table. They were both leaning over, Gerard’s eyes on Frank’s hand, which was in his own, Frank’s eyes on Gerard’s face, an odd, soft expression on his face. Gerard had a pen in hand, and was busy drawing on the back of Frank’s palms, where he was drawing a dragon.

Mikey promptly ignored them, going straight for the warm coffee in the pot. He refilled his cup, before hesitantly crossing to look at Gerard’s drawing. He was drawing a dragon that curled around from the side of Frank’s palm, around the half-heart and ROMANTIC lettering. “Let me just say, dragons are the coolest. Other than vampires of course,” Gerard said, adding claws to the dragon. “Oh, hey Mikey,” he said, glancing up at Mikey.

Frank grinned at Mikey. “Gee is drawing tattoo ideas for me.”

“I can see,” Mikey remarked, sipping at his coffee. He didn’t say how he could see the misty look that Frank got when he looked directly at Gerard.

 

And then, last but never the least, there was how damn protective the two were of one another. Frank nearly snapped when Gerard went missing while they were recording Three Cheers, and had to be almost constantly reassured that they would find Gerard, that he would be okay.

Whenever Frank hurt himself during a concert (which was often, Frank was like a human hurricane) Gerard always made sure to take him to someone who could patch it up, and then make sure he was changing his band-aid or bandage.

When Gerard was at rock-bottom, struggling with addiction and alcoholism, Mikey remembered that Frank was always close by, tight-lipped and ready to pick Gerard up off of the ground, dust him off, and send him on his way.

It amazed Mikey, the level of sheer commitment between the two.

 

And somewhere, in between looks or drawings of Frank, it all clicks for Mikey. He rushes to confront Gerard immediately, who was brushing his teeth by the side of their tour bus.

"Oh my god, you're in love with Frank!" Mikey said, feeling a smile of jubilation tug at his face.

"...are not." Gerard muttered around his toothbrush. Mikey, after growing up with the guy, knew when Gerard was lying.

"Are too"

"Are not!"

"Are fucking too!"

"...fine. Maybe" Gerard’s face turned pink as he turned away to spit.

"I fucking knew it!" Mikey felt so happy he had figured it out. “Have you told him yet?” he asked excitedly.

“No, of course not,” Gerard said, glancing around. “And keep your voice down. Anyway, what good would that do me? He doesn’t like me back.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? Of course he does!” Mikey continued, “Can you really not see the looks that guy gives you? Or how he only wants to cuddle with you?” at Gerard’s blank face, it dawned on Mikey, ”Oh my god, you really can’t see it, can you? And it’s sooo obvious!”

“Well, excuse me for already giving up on that,” Gerard said, sounding bitter, then defeated. “Frank is straight.”

“Straight until proven otherwise, which has been proven for me,” Mikey said. Gerard harrumphed. “Anyway, I don’t care if it tears the band apart, which it won’t, I want you to be happy. Which is why you need to tell Frank, now.”

Gerard didn’t look happy, exactly, about that, but he wasn’t complaining out loud, so Mikey took that as a victory. “But how? And where? We’re on tour, there’s not a lot of places you can run to on a bus.”

“Let me think of something, but it will happen, and soon.” Mikey grinned and turned on his heel, heading back onto the bus to scheme.

 

As it turned out, it was very easy to book them rooms in a hotel, and convince Bryan that they needed a night off of the bus. It was also very easy to get Ray and Bob a room, ‘accidentally’ book a queen bed for Frank and Gerard, and get a room for himself and Bryan.

Everything was in order, and Mikey just smiled at Gerard’s pink, mortified face when Gerard and Frank discovered that their room had a queen bed. Mikey went to bed happy, knowing that his plan had been put into action.

And sure enough, the next morning Frank and Gerard left their room holding hands, a line of ill-concealed hickies trailing down Gerard’s neck into his shirt. The guys poked a little fun, but Frank and Gerard looked too damn happy for any of it to really stick. Mikey ran into Gerard in the kitchen of the bus, where Gerard sighed. “I guess I owe you,” he said.

Mikey smiled. “Naming your first child together Michael or Michele should do fine, I think.”

Gerard grinned. “In your dreams, dude.”

\- end -

 

 


End file.
